


2 Down, Prowl Across

by Mogseltof



Series: Prowl Week 2020 [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Humour, Trans Character, eventual knitting, non binary character, nothing bad happens, online arguments, setting cameo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 08:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23848270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mogseltof/pseuds/Mogseltof
Summary: What do: a brewpub in Portland, a crossword website, a linguistics post-grad, and the second in command of the Autobot forces have in common?ORProwl gets into an internet fight, and shows off his extraordinarily petty side;ORHarper cackled with laughter, glasses slipping as their head was thrown back. “Blair! Blair did you challenge a giant alien robot to throw down in a Denny’s over a friggin’crossword!”
Series: Prowl Week 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709491
Comments: 26
Kudos: 86
Collections: Prowl Week





	2 Down, Prowl Across

When Prowl logged into his favourite human website on his mid morning energon break, there was a message in his account inbox. This was unusual, in that the site newsletter went to his email address he’d set up for this kind of site, and he didn’t engage on the forums. Also, it was a _crossword_ site; he wasn’t playing other people, he was playing the _site_. 

The subject line said: “I WILL defeat you!”

This gave Prowl a moment of pause. ...Had a Decepticon found and flagged his profile, somehow? Was this some idiot delivering a cross-faction taunt in the weirdest way possible? Would he _actually_ have to delete his best downtime hobby in the name of Autobot security? That would be really very irritating. When he opened the message however, it was from a user under the handle “Wilde_Love_Childe”, who’s profile indicated that they used “they/them” pronouns, were a site administrator, a forum moderator, and had submitted more than 300 puzzles written by theirself. 

The message read:

“ _Look. I’m a big kid. I could handle it when you outstripped me in the site rankings. Sometimes people are just better at things than you are, and have more time on their hands than you, and I can deal with that!_ ”

Checking, Wilde_Love_Childe was indeed second on the sitewide rankings. Prowl was a significant number of points above them, and the gap between them and number three was similar. (Prowl’s lead was larger though, he was gratified to note.)

“ _And okay, so I did speculate that you_ might _have been a bot of some kind prior to your only post on the forums,_ ”

...Not wholly inaccurate.

“ _But this is beyond the pale, okay. I’m a live and let live kind of person, but you do_ not _get to object to perfectly good puzzle submission just because you don’t think the slang one of the questions was based on doesn’t make sense! Slang frequently doesn’t make sense! It’s part of what makes it_ slang _!_ ”

The rant about slang’s validity in the realm of crosswords went on for several paragraphs, and was derailed by a small, but fascinating lecture on how language developed in parallel in wider language groups, the difference between ‘slang’ and ‘pidgin’, and development in rural versus urban areas, and the emorialating effects class had on vocabulary. It ended with an angry declaration that the puzzle in question was totally inoffensive, and that one question involving localised language didn’t diminish that, particularly since answering the question required only either a small amount of specialised knowledge, a geographical advantage, or ‘the world’s shortest Google search’.

Then they invited Prowl to take up any further complaints with them in a Denny’s parking lot if he was ever in Portland, Oregon and desiring of an ass-kicking.

* * *

As luck would have it, he was in Portland, Oregon, just a week later. They had a meeting with a specialist who was in town. Or rather, Chip did. Cybertronians made the poor man nervous, so Chip had agreed to keep his phone on while Prowl kept himself occupied. This was... probably not a good way to keep himself occupied, but he found himself in the parking lot of the brewpub anyway. 

It didn’t take very long—he might have checked the online roster, which was a little creepy—but Wilde_Love_Childe came out of the main exit with a friend. Prowl had managed to get a park right next to the door, and he had both windows down so he could be heard clearly, but he wasn’t planning on just _talking_ at them. Now that he thought about it it was a little weird that he’d even shown up, but he’d really just wanted to make sure that they were who they said they were, and also that contacting him hadn’t alerted anyone else to their presence who might take more out of the message than was actually there. 

it didn’t really matter either way because they stopped by his door and gave him a puzzled look, before turning to their friend and saying: “Did you see a cop inside? I thought plains clothes drove their own cars and only uniforms drove officials? Also, I thought there were usually two to a car?”

“Blair, you read too much into every—” their friend started to say, but Prowl sighed internally. 

“The answer is that I’m not a real police officer,” he explained clearly, making them both jump and stare at him. “I do have an honorary badge under the jurisdiction of Washington State, but I’m not actually authorised to enforce human law.”

Blair stared through his open window and into his empty seats, eyes wide and eyebrows elevated almost to their hairline. By contrast, their friend (dark skin, dreadlocks, colourful glasses) looked delighted. “You’re one of the aliens from the news? An Autobot?”

“Yes,” said Prowl, pleasantly. “My name is Prowl. I’m an officer with the Autobot contingent here.”

“Very nice to meet you! I’m Harper, this is Blair,” said Harper, gesturing towards Blair. “Can I ask why you’re in a brewpub parking lot? Or is it like, secret alien stuff?” Harper’s eyebrows wiggled, grinning widely. 

“Actually it’s not. Your friend Blair indicated in their message that if I wanted to touch base I should report to a local Denny’s for an ass kicking. They didn’t specify which one, however.”

Blair made an interesting choking sound, their hand flying to their mouth as their eyes squeezed shut. 

Harper made a wheezing, thready sound, that Prowl was initially concerned about, but identified as laughter. After a moment it broke enough for Harper to speak. “...So are you the guy on the ‘adopt don’t shop’ twitter thread, the classist asshole on the crossword forum, or the boomer on the Facebook group for Portland buy-and-swap?”

“The crossword one, I believe. I don’t go on the forums though.”

Harper cackled with laughter, glasses slipping as their head was thrown back. “Blair! Blair did you challenge a _giant alien robot_ to throw down in a Denny’s over a friggin’ _crossword_!”

“ _Giant alien robot_ is not what I was expecting!” Blair managed to get the words out, removing their hand, though the tone was strangled and their face was entirely red. They gave up on standing and sat on the curb, covering their face with both hands now. “Oh my god, this _would_ be the one time someone takes me up on that threat.”

“I think it would be distinctly unfair of me to demand you follow through on fighting me,” said Prowl reassuringly, making Harper laugh even harder. “I mostly wanted to apologise.”

Blair mumbled something from behind their hands, and Harper patted his door reassuringly. “I think that’s apology accepted,” they said cheerfully. 

“I said we missed the bus,” said Blair, looking up, face still totally red. “Argh!”

“Oops,” said Harper. “Come on, it’s okay, I’ll spot you an Uber. This? I am going to absolutely drag you in front of everyone at the group.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you miss your bus,” said Prowl, then he considered things. “If you’re willing, I have nothing to do for the next—” Chip was talking rather enthusiastically about one of his pet theories, oh dear, Prowl revised his timeframe upwards, “—three hours or so. Where do you need to go?”

Harper and Blair shared a look, and after a split second’s consideration, both nodded. “It’s a nice day out so we’re at a local park,” said Blair, standing up and brushing off their waitress pants with a wave to someone who was hovering by the door inside. “Sorry, my boss,” they explained, stepping closer to Prowl who popped his doors obligingly. “Um, I can give directions.”

“If you’d rather,” said Prowl as Blair climbed in the passenger side. 

“Do you mind if I—" said Harper gesturing to the driver's seat. 

“Go for it,” said Prowl. 

Harper grinned winningly and climbed in, gently patting his steering wheel. “Thank you. Is that weird? I’m sorry if that’s weird.”

“It’s not weird,” Prowl assured them. “Most of the buttons and pedals are non functional, except for the seatbelts. We decided the seatbelts should definitely be functional.”

Blari laughed at that, relaxing a little, and they gave the first turning directions for Prowl as he set off from the brewpub. 

“...Do you always show up in person to end internet fights?” asked Blair eventually. 

“No, but I was in town and you seemed unusually upset by what I’d said,” said Prowl. 

“Oh, good,” said Blair, throwing their head back. “God.”

Harper laughed again. “Okay, okay, I think we can let it settle. Have you ever been to a stitch ‘n’ bitch, Prowl?”

“No, I must confess.”

“Well this one’s with the local queer collective, so let’s get you in form before we get there.” Harper was grinning widely. “My name’s Harper, and I use she or they pronouns. This is my friend Blair, and they use they pronouns.”

“Yes, it was on their profile,” said Prowl, flashing a light on the radio to show he understood. “My name is Prowl and my pronouns are unpronounceable in any human tongues, but I’m using he and him in English.”

“...Oh I’m going to be asking you questions about unpronounceable alien pronouns,” Blair promised, perking up a little. “My thesis is on language of non binary genders translated into binary language—I shit, I don’t have interview permissions. Can I—?”

“You can reach me at my profile message box at any point,” said Prowl. “I’m, hmm, always tapped in, so to speak. Can I ask how you ended up waiting tables? I read your honours thesis, it was very good.”

“My bosses pay unusually well, being a PhD candidate does not,” said Blair, shrugging. “Wait, you read my honours thesis?”

“Your name and public facebook was linked to your profile, I was curious, I apologise,” said Prowl, pulling into the park. 

“No, no it’s cool. Very cool,” said Blair eagerly. “Harper sure as hell hates listening to me babble on about linguistics.”

“I’m already half asleep, it’s true,” agreed Harper as she climbed out of Prowl’s open door. “Uh, I don’t know if you can drive on these paths.”

“It’s okay, I can entertain myself in the city, you don’t have to—”

“Oh hell no,” said Blair. “You came out here and you’re on your own for three hours? You’re joining us. I saw a video, you guys don’t always stay cars, right? Or is that just some of you? Or is it intensive?”

“...No, it’s all of us, and it doesn’t use any excessive energy,” said Prowl after a moment. “Are you sure? I’ve already intruded on your afternoon.”

“Very sure,” said Blair, nodding. “I don’t think the others would forgive us.”

“Very well. You may want to stand back a bit.”

Blair and Harper backed up to behind the rail of the parking lot obligingly and watched expectantly. 

He transformed, and they made the appropriate noises humans seemed to like every time they watched the process for the first time. “Sir, you are very cool,” called up Harper, shading their face with one hand. “I feel you should know that.”

“Thank you, I think,” said Prowl, and Blair grinned, waving him on to follow them.

**Author's Note:**

> THUS ENDETH PROWL WEEK!
> 
> yeah I wanted to get to the actual knitting group in this instalment but I exhausted myself lmao. So, next time: Prowl learns to knit and discusses binary. Coming soon-ish to a profile near you, as soon as I catch back up on my Honey Tree work and the next short story for my original work subscribers! I hope you all enjoyed this week as much as I did!


End file.
